snowball999's Open Salon Blog

Pussy Riot and the Russian justice system.

Sun, 12 Aug 2012 09:08:41 -0400

The verdict in the Pussy Riot case is due to be announced next Friday, August 17^th. I am thrilled with the wide international support, that the world cares, what is going to happen to Pussy Riot, the Russian protest punk band, currently on trial for a 40 second song and dance in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. This “trial” still seems so surreal, because formally Russian Federation is a secular state and church is separated from state in the Constitution. Without expert knowledge, it is difficult to grasp, what exactly this trial means for the justice system. Thankfully, a friend of mine, Irena Nesterova, a Russian journalist with background in law, has done a nice summary, of what seems to have become acceptable in Russian courts. The original post in Russian is available here:

http://publicpost.ru/blog/id/15033/

For the rest I am providing this translation.

"The Pussy Riot trial has shown the frontiers of the impossible to the world.

What the Russians have got accustomed to, might prove to be a revelation for the international community.

The trial of the punk prayer performers has demonstrated to the world, what the Russian Femida CAN do.

One can throw out the journalists and the supporters from the court house, one can beat some of them too. Those who did the beating and throwing out would not suffer any consequences, because it was the judge’s orders.

One can prosecute the girls not for they did in the cathedral, but for the video, without knowing who has made the video and who has uploaded it to the Internet.

One can base the charges on the articles of the Council in Trullo, which has taken place in Constantinople in 691-692 AD, even without quoting them correctly.

One can consider the president of the country and the head of the Russian Orthodox Church to be a “social group of the Russian Orthodox believers”.

One can claim, that a performance lasting one minute “has ruined the foundations of the state”.

One can devoid the defendants of the time to prepare for the hearings and prevent them from consulting their lawyers in private. One can also not let them sleep enough, shower and eat regularly.

One can call the “crime scene” the place, which is managed by the secular organization – The Foundation of the Christ the Savior Cathedral – where the priests are not supposed to have religious services legally.

One can, in total breach of the law, prevent the defense from being able to submit a petition and one can lie, that it was untimely.

One can refuse to add to the case the evidence provided by the defense, without giving any reason.

One can pressure the defense lawyers by threatening to take away their status.

One can, not just unlawfully refuse to allow the defense to question the witnesses and the experts (we have grown accustomed to that!), but also prevent them from entering the court house and throw out those who managed to enter.

One can accept as the main and only proof of the charges, the psychological/linguistic expertise, performed by the lawyer named Ponkin. It so happens that the lawyer of the “victim”, Kuznetsov, is in fact the teacher and co-author of the book written by Ponkin. The court has refused to consider the connection between the two. “Perhaps they have quarreled since then?” was the court’s response.

And finally, one can, “express lenience”, just as the president has suggested (trying to “correct the crookedness of the history”), and ask for the girls just three years in jail for the crime they did not commit.

All this can be done!"

I want to comment on the lack of sleep, shower and proper meals for the defendants. Many have called that “torture”. Recently I have heard another opinion. A prominent Russian journalist and a champion of the wrongfully imprisoned, Olga Romanova (her husband is behind bars for stealing the shares which he legally paid for) has remarked, that it is incorrect to call it “torture”, because everybody in the Russian penitentiary system is treated this way.

Tragedy in the South of Russia.

Sat, 7 Jul 2012 13:07:04 -0400

Town of Krimsk in the Krasnodar region in the south of Russia had population of 50 thousand people. Tonight it was engulfed by what can be described as a tsunami.

At the hight of the wave water was almost reaching the ceiling of the second floor.

Social networks are full of cries for help and horror stories about water coming in the middle of the night and help being late and scarce. The official version is the rain the day before, but there are substantial rumors, that the water reservoir over the city Novorossiysk was overflowing and Krymsk was sacrificed so the bigger city would be intact. The people of Krymsk did not receive any kind of warning and its mayor is reportedly AWOL since yesterday. Russian environmentalist Suren Gazaryan is tweeting the horrible pictures of destruction. The official toll is about a hundred for now, but with reports of many people being washed away, it is expected to rise. President Putin is flying to the region, which is causing concerns, that security measures for his arrival would impede the rescue efforts. Summer months traditionally bring disasters to Russia, falling planes, sinking submarines, peat bogs and forests on fire. Perhaps it is high time to stop blaming it all on the decaying infrastructure and destructive decade of the nineties. The responsible party is squarely those who are in charge right now.

June 12 March in Moscow.

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 23:06:46 -0400

Today the Russian opposition marched again in Moscow, on this day 31 years ago Russia has declared the intention to leave the USSR to become an independent state. Now it is a public holiday, the Russia Day. The number of participants is estimated about 70 thousand people, though Moscow police has a special way of counting, which is always one fourth to one third of the realistic number. Their estimate for today was 20 thousand. Participants mostly consider the protest a success, it was comparable in size to the last one, it had a joyful mood, there were no violence or provocations and it had constructive elements. A version of a joint manifest was read out loud and approved by those in attendance. Also, the Voter League has distributed over 50 thousand leaflets regarding the future referendum in Moscow on mayoral election and other local issues. The protest was marred and likely intensified by the yesterday’s police raids on the apartments of some members of the opposition, including anti corruption blogger Alexey Navalny and the Left Front leader Sergey Udaltsov, who are investigated regarding clashes with the police during the protests on May 6^th. Prominent members of the ruling party United Russia had a different opinion of the protest. Using the estimate of 20 thousand participants, including one thousand journalists, they concluded that most Russians do not support the opposition and the protest is diminishing, most likely because of the new harsh law, regulating all forms of protest, including even spontaneous gatherings. They declared the law a success, though many articles of this hastily produced and adopted law were in direct contradiction with the article 31 of the Russian Constitution, granting the right to protest peacefully.

Elsewhere in Russia there were smaller protests and there were places where no protests were allowed, like Voronezh and Chelyabinsk. Prior to the previous protest, on May 6^th, there were widespread reports about people being prevented from getting to Moscow by all means possible, including lengthy verifications of documents, searches for drugs and suspicions of terrorist activities. This time the number of such reports was down, however there was a case in Saratov when two people were prevented from boarding a bus to Moscow under the guise of a search for a bomb. No bombs were found, nonetheless, the detained were taken to the police for questioning. In a completely terrifying event, the car of Evgeniy Domozhirov, a local council member from Vologda, was stopped by unknown people and fired upon. Domozhirov and his companion sustained some light injuries, all the tires of their car were flat and the car was damaged. Interesting fact, Domozhirov had problems getting to Moscow on May 6^th as well.

Even though the level of intimidation went a little bit down, the fact remains, that in Russia today opposition is treated more often like terrorists, rather than like lawful members of the society with a different opinion. In any case, none of the reasons for people to take to the streets in the first place have gone anywhere. Two rigged elections, corrupt government and courts, diminishing quality of education, science and healthcare are still as important to the people as ever. There is an obvious disconnect with the government, which sees keeping the people away “from radicalism” by means of the new law as more important than solving any of those problems. This unhealthy combination is likely to keep protests and growing civil movement thriving.

Barrett shouldn't have faced Walker again.

Tue, 5 Jun 2012 23:06:47 -0400

Having lost to Walker in the election in 2010, Tom Barrett should not have been ever put in another election against him. That's not just bad karma, that's negative psychological impact right there. It was bad enough, that they did not have a charismatic person like Russ Feingold in the running. But the very least they could do, was to have Walker face someone he has not beaten before.

Of course money played the part. How could it not? 30 million against 3.9, more than 2/3 of it from out of state for Walker, the opposite for Barrett. If I have ever seen a most compelling argument against Citizens United, this iss it. There is something twisted going on here, Republicans hate when government interferes with their local affairs, but they welcome all outside money and influence they can get, if it is in their favor. I am not sure that the Supreme Court that have put Citizens United in place would see it this way, because it might be obviously biased towards own decisions. I hope however, that this election would generate enough wave to overturn it eventually, because local politics should not be influenced that much by that much of outside money. That's just wrong.

The rule of absurd in Russia.

Mon, 4 Jun 2012 16:06:33 -0400

Something is seriously amiss lately in the Russian system of justice, namely, justice. Is it really fair to sentence anyone to 15 days in jail for sneezing on the portrait of a leader? Precisely that has happened to Dmitry Karuev from Cheboksary. He was staging a protest on May 6th and while holding a portrait of Vladimir Putin, he had an urge to sneeze, then he was immediately arrested and promptly sentenced. Interesting fact, as of May 6th, Putin was still a prime minister, not a president. I wonder, if the sentence would have been harsher, if the accident happened later in the week.

While still not a laughing matter, the previous accident has some ironic undertones. There are none in the next example of injustice. Back in May, a car of a bank manager from Gasprombank has hit a two year old boy, who was crossing the road with his mother. The car briefly stopped, the driver wanted to find out if everybody was ok, but then the car passenger, who happened to be a bank manager Alexander Schmidt, had ordered the driver to leave right away. The child suffered kidney bruises, but the experts for the case failed to find a connection to the accident. The case was reported in blogs and various media, which made Alexander Schmidt extremely unhappy. To relieve this itchy feeling, he sued the initial blogger, everybody who reposted the story and all media, who reported about the case. The charges were «instigating hatred towards top managers of large Russian companies». There is some interesting concept of justice here. Those, who hit a child and leave from the scene of the accident, are the helpless victims of cruel and inconsiderate bloggers and journalists. I am somewhat relieved to report, that at this time the license of the driver has been suspended for a year, another expertise for the child's injuries is planned and a few of the lawsuites against bloggers have been dropped, although not all of them.

When we grow up, one of the first things we learn, is always to tell the truth. This is exactly what Tatiana Ivanova from St.Petersburg has done. She was a teacher and because schools are often polling places, she was a volunteer for the presidential election this year. Usually volunteers have a training session for familiarization with the procedures. But the session, led by the local education official Natalia Nazarova, was an unusual one. She was teaching how to make sure to write in the «correct» results in favor of Vladimir Putin. Tatiana Ivanova was rightfully outraged and went to the press with this. But Nazarova made sure that our truth loving teacher was let go by the school in the middle of the academic year and sued her for «ruining her business reputation». A couple of days ago Tatiana Ivanova was found guilty and sentenced to the fine of 30 000 roubles, which is about $950. Just to put it in perspective, it is likely close to her two month's salary as a teacher. I am still wondering, if there is some irony hidden in the number 30, as in thousands of roubles in the fine amount.

Another case of punishment not fitting the crime, is an infamous in Russia case of Pussy Riot, a punk group who performed a short song in a cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. The prayer song included a line asking the mother of god to get rid of Putin. Evidently, there were mightily offended citizens and even though the deed did not fit any article of the Criminal Code, the girls have been in jail for 3 months now. There were 3 rounds of expertise and finally the third one has found the signs of instigation of religious hatered in the performance. That can be punishable by a 7 year jail sentence.

But the Russian Femida is not always so harsh. Back in 2006 a famous journalist Anna Politkovskaya has been gunned down in her apartment building. There was a Chechen trail, because Chechen war was one of her main interests. The investigation is still under way, some suspects are detained. One of them recently had some unspecified health problems and was released to stay under house arrest.

Another mild sentence was handed to Sergey Tzepoviaz, who happened to be a prominent United Russia party member and a personal friend of Krasnodar region governor. He was charged with covering up a gang murder of 12 people. He had strong ties with the gang leaders, so he was handed a real slap on the hand. A $4000 dollar fine. Let me reiterate, he was sentenced to a fine for helping to cover up a premediated murder of 12 people, including children.

If one was to apply logic to all this information, it would be easy to come to the conclusion, that it is not a good idea to tell the truth, to have your own opinion and to sing in wrong places in present Russia. Mixing up with murder is much more preferable, obviously, especially if you have the right kind of friends.